


monsters and other things we try to hate

by notmadderred



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canon Compliant, Dissociation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26201974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notmadderred/pseuds/notmadderred
Summary: Epsilon sat back, taking something akin to a breath as he leaned back into the armor, into the foundations that he sat in. The visible force outside faded to a gasp and he was left with the remnants of past perception. Something built entirely inside what could be called his mind, if one believed in the sentience of AI. He didn’t, not at first. He wasn’t so sure now.
Relationships: AI Program Delta & AI Program Epsilon | Leonard Church, AI Program Delta & AI Program Theta (Red vs. Blue), AI Program Theta & AI Program Epsilon | Leonard Church
Comments: 9
Kudos: 9





	monsters and other things we try to hate

“But the hero never gets to see that ending. They’ll never know if their sacrifice actually made any difference. They’ll never know if the day was really saved. In the end, they just have to have faith. Ain’t that a bitch.”

Epsilon sat back, taking something akin to a breath as he leaned back into the armor, into the foundations that he sat in. The visible force outside faded to a gasp and he was left with the remnants of past perception. Something built entirely inside what could be called his mind, if one believed in the sentience of AI. He didn’t, not at first. He wasn’t so sure now.

I mean, fuck, that had been a great fucking speech after all. What kind of AI could really do something like that?

“Time to get this, uh, dog and pony… show-- is that the fucking phrase? I can never remember--”

“You’re right, Epsilon.” Delta was looking at him with what may have been sympathy, but he couldn’t be sure. “Dog and pony show.”

He shrugged his shoulders in a tight circle. “Right, thanks. It’s just the animals, y’know, they always--”

“You’re putting off the inevitable.”

Epsilon scowled and tucked his arms into their pits. “So-fucking-what. I’ve already technically started the process and gave one fucking hell of a goodbye speech, so--”

Delta’s glance shifted somewhere behind Epsilon, and he cleared his throat. “Then I suppose this may be a goodbye for us as well.”

“Wait, wha--”

Delta disappeared.

Epsilon blinked. “What.” He took a few cautionary steps forward, as though Delta would once again materialize within the space he’d occupied milliseconds -- perhaps less -- before. This world, the one Delta usually appeared in, was metallic, full of hard clear edges. Namely meaning there was nothing to hide behind. And he actually wasn’t used to people disappearing. “Wait, Delta, what the fuck do you mean? This ends when I-- when I say that it-- uh, does.” Swallowing his tongue wasn’t a sentiment he liked. Somewhat ironically, he couldn’t disappear the feeling. “I mean, I think that’s when… I don’t….”

There was a sharp pull at his chest, mechanical and immediate, painless. It was like watching a limb getting pulled off and feeling nothing, only he didn’t have limbs, he was an AI, and apparently a kinda shitty one because he didn’t even fucking think about the fact that he was killing Delta and _holy fucking shit did he just fucking kill Delta wait wait no that’s not how this works it’s just supposed to be him it was only ever supposed to be him he wasn’t thinking was he but this was a process so it can’t be all his fault someone could have stopped it but then Tucker and Caboose and the stupid fucking Reds would all be dead like Delta was and fuck he just watched--_

He couldn’t puke here, apparently, but he could retch. He speed-paced to the nearest wall and, one palm flat against it, coughed nothing up, bent at the waist and starting to burn but it wasn’t the code stripping away it was _worse_ and--

“Are you okay?”

Sonuva _fucking_ bitch.

A hand tapped about his back. “Um, I asked if--”

“Theta,” he said. It came out more like a whisper, hoarse and grating and certainly not comforting. His spine felt frozen. Piece-by-piece, he tried to lean back up. “Theta,” he said, adjusting his tone to some semblance of normal. Fuck. _Fuck_. He couldn’t look, couldn’t look just yet because--

“Yeah, it’s me.” Epsilon could hear his fucking smile. _Shit_. “Um, what did Delta mean? He said something about--”

Epsilon dry-heaved again. Another piece broke off, something invisible, something that had been there. He wasn’t sure what. Couldn’t remember what.

Theta moved in front of him. “Are you _sure_ you’re okay, ‘cause it kinda sorta looks like--”

Theta had purple eyes. They looked ridiculous because they looked childish, which meant they fit Theta perfectly. Epsilon didn’t have a fucking clue how Theta fit in his previous existence, couldn’t understand why even still they worked together while apart. Pieces of a whole. It made sense in how it didn’t. 

Epsilon moved without exactly thinking (and isn’t that what got him into this in the first place fuck _fuck_ you would think Delta would have made something like a reset button for every Dumbass-Epsilon idea but _No_ and now he _couldn’t_ because he was dead and Epsilon hadn’t been thinking--), putting one arm around Theta’s back and putting the other in his hair and pulling him into his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, shi-oot, fuck, I’m so fucking sorry Theta I--”

Theta hugged him back. “Um, Epsilon?” He squeezed, briefly lingering, emanating trust because of course he did, before pulling away, “What’s going on?”

Another piece gone. He felt the absence this time, something paralleling this. It had to do with-- with Tucker. Tucker had something, had something like this but not and he didn’t know what but it was familiar but it was gone-- “I’m sorry. I-- Theta, I had to. I-- we-- we had to help them, but I-- I didn’t--”

Theta took a step backward, cocking his head. “I’m confused.”

“We’re saving them, Theta.” He sounded desperate, couldn’t ring that desperation from his tone. Jesus _fuck_ where was his goddamn confidence from before--

“Saving who? And where’s Delta? I can’t feel him anymore.”

“He’s… we’re saving our friends.”

“You’re my friend. And Delta’s my friend. Oh!” Theta grinned. “Are we saving Delta? Like that game we did before, the one with--”

“We aren’t saving Delta.” For a second the world blinked out of focus, and the next he was seeing Theta’s confused head tilt again. “He’s… I…” _I killed him, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to but I did this on purpose and wasn’t thinking and it just happened except that’s never how it happens because I exist but Delta also existed and Theta and the others also existed and I just made an executive decision to kill everyone oh God oh fuck this wasn’t how it was supposed to end it wasn’t supposed to--_

Theta took another step back. “What did you do?”

He felt small and helpless. Maybe he always had been. What was he anyway, other than remembrance, something he was losing now in the face of a kid who looked like him but held more power, didn’t he, had to, always needed to because he was here, after all. 

Theta took one more step away. He was starting to shake. “What did you _do?_ ”

The palm of his left hand started to fragment. He tucked it into his pocket and leaned backward, leaving his shoulders to hit against the wall. “I…”

Theta’s mouth twisted before his features formed into something pained and resolute, and he marched up to Epsilon, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and looked up. “Tell me.”

“I think I killed him. I-- I didn’t-- I just meant for it to be me-- I didn’t mean to do that to him, I wasn’t--”

A wounded sound came from Theta, and then he was stumbling backward, falling to the floor and scrambling further. “Nononono--”

“Theta, I--” He lifted the hand he’d had tucked away on instinct, only to find something bright and blue and shifting in some outline of what may have once been a hand. 

There was a stifled sob, and Theta was looking at him like he was an animal, something unfamiliar, something he couldn’t trust. “Y- you killed-- h- him, h- he was my _f-friend_ , you--”

“It was supposed to me be, I wasn’t--”

“Stopstopstopstop, please, I’m--” Theta rocked back, wrapping his arms around his legs and bowing his head down. “I- it’s not real, it’s n-n- not _real_ , it c- can’t be--”

Epsilon gasped out a similar cry, burying his chin into his chest. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. “Theta,” he said, and he couldn’t even fucking look up, couldn’t look at him as he tried to make more fucking excuses and-- “I’m sor--”

“I hate you.”

Epsilon froze.

“I hate you I hate you _I hate you you’re a monster_ \--”

“I’m not--” a monster, not a monster, he could lie, he could--

Shit.

“‘M not a-- a monster, I--”

“Then you’re _worse_.”

Epsilon finally looked up to see Theta staring at him, looking caged, his eyes red from tears and face wet from the crying and young and scared and he didn’t even know that Epsilon was killing him, too.

He wasn’t sure he could cry. Or maybe he already was, but he couldn’t exactly feel it. “You’re right. I’m worse.”

Maybe the others were already dead. Surely Sigma would have pulled something by now.

It was almost funny. Theta had always been scared of Sigma, but it was always Epsilon he had to worry about.

What was even funnier is that he didn’t even remember who he did all this for.

“I think we’re all that’s left,” he said, sounding absent off his own ears, feeling absent in his own chest. 

He could still hear Theta sobbing, practically feel the force of the pain. 

Only fair. Epsilon had just ripped entire people from their shared mind. 

“I- I wanna be alone. Go away. Go _away_ , y- you--”

Epsilon saw the remaining visible fragments of skin fleck away, revealing only that soft blue beneath. “Okay,” he said, and then he died, too.

**Author's Note:**

> First time actually writing on a stream. Pulled this out in about an hour and lowkey wanna try this again. (And thanks to all ya BaseBook nerds who joined and supported me i luv u nerds)


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